Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio grow apart as their ambitions expand

Nov. 1, 2015

Updated 6:26 p.m.

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Republican presidential hopefuls Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz after the Republican presidential debate in Boulder, Colo., on Oct. 28, 2015. The senators brought similar backgrounds and Tea Party fervor to Washington, but any alliance between them frayed as they moved closer to seeking the White House. JIM WILSON , THE NEW YORK TIMES

Republican presidential hopefuls Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz after the Republican presidential debate in Boulder, Colo., on Oct. 28, 2015. The senators brought similar backgrounds and Tea Party fervor to Washington, but any alliance between them frayed as they moved closer to seeking the White House. JIM WILSON , THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON – When he ran for the Senate from Texas in 2012, Ted Cruz welcomed the comparisons on Capitol Hill and in the news media to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, another 41-year-old Cuban American and oratorically gifted conservative who, two years earlier, had ridden a wave of Tea Party support to victory over his state’s Republican establishment.

But Cruz also sought a more direct connection to Rubio, making several pilgrimages to his Washington office for advice, as well as an endorsement, according to people who were members of Rubio’s staff at the time.

Rubio, by then outgrowing his Tea Party stage and seeking to position himself as a party leader who did not meddle in others’ primaries, never found room in his schedule for Cruz, who had to settle for a meeting with Rubio’s staff members.

Cruz won without Rubio’s endorsement, and later confided to a Republican senator that he “resented” Rubio’s reluctance to endorse him. Now, the two Republican stars, biographically similar but stylistically opposite, are running for president, and Cruz is privately telling colleagues that he believes the race for the party’s nomination will boil down to a contest between himself and Rubio.

It is a belief shared by some other leading Republicans and a prospect made only more plausible by their standout performances in Wednesday night’s presidential debate on CNBC. After the debate, Rubio and his wife could be seen leaving the building with Cruz’s wife and children, smiles on all their faces.

But over the last few months, Cruz and Rubio have staked out opposing positions in the Senate that could become strengths, or weaknesses, in a two-man race.

Rubio, for example, voted to give the Obama administration fast-track authority to push its Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, while Cruz, after initially supporting the bill, did not. And Rubio, loath to be tarnished with congressional inefficiency, has been less vocal about his willingness to shut down the government over the funding of Planned Parenthood than Cruz, who has predicated his presidential rationale on his ideological purity.

“They both walk to the edge of the pool,” said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “Cruz always jumps in.”

Republican senators said that while Rubio and Cruz were never close, they had detected a chill between the two. “Their relationship has diverged,” Sen. John McCain of Arizona said.

One senator used the word “wariness.” Another said that an unpersuasive argument for getting one on board with legislation would be pointing out that it was championed by the other. They, like other senators and staff members, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about their colleagues.

Now both 44 and eager to become the first Latino president, Rubio and Cruz are content to stay out of each other’s way on the campaign trial, both seeming more concerned now with clearing out competitors in their respective lanes.

It was no accident that Rubio sparred in the debate with Jeb Bush, his rival for the support of Republican establishment donors. Or that Cruz steered clear of any conflict as he spoke directly to the camera about his born-again father in an effort to solidify his support among evangelicals.

But they are already competing in the Senate for the endorsement of Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who is admired by the conservative base for his anti-spending positions, and whose backing is considered a conservative seal of approval.

Cruz has made an overt pitch to Lee, talking about his success in fundraising, why he stacks up better against the other candidates and why different pools of conservative voters will coalesce around him when, in his telling, the campaigns of Donald Trump and Ben Carson inevitably evaporate, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations.

But a recent spat in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing exposed signs of strain in the relationship between Cruz and Lee — who in the past were described, to the annoyance of Lee, as Batman and Robin. In the hearing, Cruz argued that measures proposed by Lee would weaken punishment of violent offenders, which Lee called a mischaracterization.

Rubio seems ready to capitalize, though in a subtle manner more reflective of his congenial style.

Rubio has made a point to ask Lee about his family, said a person with knowledge of those conversations. And Rubio’s super PAC airs ads in New Hampshire championing a tax plan he and Lee sponsored.

The two candidates declined to comment about their relationship, but their advisers sought in interviews to tamp down any notion of tension, while still acknowledging their differences.

On a more personal level, Cruz’s musical tastes are country, while Rubio’s run toward West Coast rap, and they have shared few, if any, meals outside the Senate. Nevertheless, the advisers described a collegial relationship based on common backgrounds — both talk of their Cuban émigré families on the campaign trail, and oppose President Barack Obama’s opening of ties to Cuba — and ability to rib each other over political headaches (the government shutdown for Cruz, immigration policy for Rubio).

Rubio won his Senate seat in 2010 as a deeply conservative outsider who thrashed Florida’s governor at the time, the moderate Charlie Crist.

Then Rubio, a popular lawmaker who came up through the Florida Legislature, gravitated to the Republican center, upsetting some of his more conservative patrons and suggesting that he believed that the party, despite its turn farther to the right, still preferred an establishment presidential candidate.

That view came more into focus when Rubio drew closer to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, and when he accepted the invitation of Democratic senators to join McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in a bipartisan group seeking an immigration policy overhaul that created a potential path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants already in the country.

Around that time, Cruz had a meeting in Rubio’s office to figure out where they stood on the nuances of immigration laws. Cruz defused any tension by sharing a story about how he had mistaken an aide’s tobacco spit cup for his coffee and taken a swig during an important phone call.

“They were doubling over in laughter,” recalled Chip Roy, then an adviser to Cruz who accompanied him to the meeting.

That was something of a high-water mark for the pair, and soon, it would be Rubio seeking association with Cruz, the Harvard-trained lawyer who has claimed Rubio’s ground as the Tea Party outsider in the Senate.

Stung by revulsion in the Republican base to his immigration bill, Rubio abandoned the legislation and sought to champion an issue that would shore up his right flank. In the summer of 2013, Cruz and Lee were leading the fight in the Senate to defund the Affordable Care Act, threatening to shut down the government and making enemies everywhere in the Senate.

On July 30 of that year, Rubio stood directly next to Cruz on the Senate floor as Lee asked them alternating questions about the importance of defunding the health care law. Fidgeting with pens and the lectern, Rubio seemed uncomfortable amid his colleagues who had become the leaders of the shutdown threat. Nevertheless, he argued that it was essential to end the health care program.

“And I would ask the senator from Texas if he, too, shares those thoughts and those feelings,” Rubio said as Cruz adjusted the microphone clipped to his tie.

“I do indeed share those thoughts and feelings,” Cruz said. Raising the stakes, he added that he also felt obliged “to honor our words and put action behind our words.”

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